


Bloodstained Halos

by you_me_and_obsession



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Jimmy Novak, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Protective Gabriel, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Torture, welcome to the angst fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7113229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/you_me_and_obsession/pseuds/you_me_and_obsession
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Stull Cemetery, Dean and Jimmy lost everything. Their co-habitation started out as the only option, and developed into a relationship out of emotional neccessity, an undefinable one. Still, they've got each other and it seems like that's all that matters until the day Castiel showed up on their doorstep. Dean's world shatters once more, and he shatters what's left of Castiel's in return. Some painful truth is revealed to Jimmy. Will they survive their own future when the past made sure there is none?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloodstained Halos

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers to 4.20 and 5.22
> 
> Lyrics taken from Charon's song [House of The Silent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50mjDEorC_E). I loved them and they went and broke my heart by disbanding. Still moping after all these years.

 

** **

  
**  
**  
_Laying beside your bed waiting for the last breath_****  
_**Can it be done, can it be saved 'till we're apart**_  
 _ **Slowly ran water down to fill you**_  
 _ **Slowly turn tides for us to weep**_ ****

 

 

_Human._  
He's feeling incredibly human. He has before, but not this. Pain, he has felt. The warmth of blood, the fear, even despair, he has felt. But this, here, he's never been. He wonders if any human on Earth has ever wanted to die so badly.  
They blended this celestial body with this human face.

***

Dean stares. But there is nothing staring back at him but the green grass. It rustles against his numb knees, as if beckoning him to dig his own grave right here, but even if he did, and even if there was someone to shove the soil back in, it wouldn't bring them back. Or, it wouldn't bring him there. Probably for the first time in his life, he fully understands the meaning of the word nothing.  
The sky is white above him, and the sun shines a kind of light so moist it's like it's bleeding those rays. If only anything from that high-above would bleed. If only Dean could make them.

***

_H_ _e's dreaming. It's been too long since he could be aware that he was dreaming._  
It's dark, but there is light. The dark seems like it has always been here, and like it's everywhere. And the light… it comes from a misty source in front of him, but he can't quite put his finger on it. The source, or rather sources, of the light, have a shape, but he can't quite make out their shape. He just knows that they're identical, two twin shapes, symmetric. And the light they're bleeding is so wet.  
The worst thing is his familiar instinct tugging at his chest.

***

Dean wakes up on the grass. The memory of the dream is hazy, but steady, and he knows it's slowly getting stuck in his mind. The thing is, he's too tired to give a damn about what's going to get stuck in his mind and what's not.  
There's movements out of the corner of his eye. The body laying on the ground is stirring awake. Despite every weary bone in his body, he sits up in painfully slow moves and walks towards Castiel.  
Cas. The very last thing in the entire not ending world that Dean still has.  
He hears words inside his head, forming and breaking like bubbles in a pot of spoiling despair. Words that he was going to tell Cas once this was over and if both of them made it out alive.  
Dean kneels down and strokes the hair that's darker because of the blood still fresh. Cas is looking like he's sleeping. But Dean is scared. Of that. That Cas may never wake again.  
"Cas", he whispers, as if speaking any louder would break his own too broken heart, "Cas. Wake up…"  
Cas' dark eyelashes start to stir, and then move up and down, and it feels too slow to Dean. So slow he hates it and…  
When those two blue eyes finally open and stare at him, Dean's world shatters. Or rather, it comes back to how it should always be.

***

They drive to Pontiac in silence. Dean doesn't speak, and Jimmy doesn't dare speak. The only words that have been spoken were "He left" and a hesitant "I'm sorry…". Dean doesn't look at him, and Jimmy's thankful for that. If Dean did, he doesn't know if he could stand what he'd see on Dean's face. He knows who Dean sees on his own face and not in his own eyes. He knows what they had together. A silent pledge to wait. Wait for the war to be over. Wait for the time they could only hope they'd have. They did wait, only to have this. A year ago, Jimmy would think something like this only happened in those crappy romantic novels on the bookshelf of his college roommate. He never knew it could happen, in a way this tragedic. That's maybe because it only happens to them. To Dean and Castiel.  
Jimmy stares out at the empty road, but between the voices of his wife and daughter in his memory, there's Castiel's voice, Cas' voice telling him something. Right before he left, but Jimmy can't remember it. There's a blank in his mind, eventhough tiny. It gets less hazy when he looks at Dean, but still, he can't recall it, and now's not the time to disturb the man anymore than he already is, so he keeps his eyes on the passing trees.

***

_That one name. He keeps calling it. That's the only thing he ever knows. He doesn't remember anything before that name, not anymore.  
He screams._

***

Dean barely turns off the engine before Jimmy is out of the car. He lets the man go alone and remains silently in the Impala. He should leave. This family reunion scenario should make him nostalgic,wistful, should make him turn away, or wear him out, anything, but he's just tired.  
Dean keeps sitting there. For minutes. Hours. Maybe seconds. Pedestrians' pass him by, their footsteps creating a strange rustle against the dry leaves on the street. It's so repetitive Dean feels like it can lull him to sleep, and he yields to it. He wants to sleep. Maybe he'll never wake up again.  
A knock on the half opened window pulls Dean back to his surroundings. A little girl is standing in front of him, long black hair, pale skin, pretty much like Snow White Callie with the violent fairytales. The girl looks innocent enough for a demon to possess. Like a reflexion, Dean whispers "Christo", but her eyes don't turn black. She only smiles and holds out her hands, her fingers huddled like they're cradling something, but all Dean can see is air.  
"Take", the girl says, still smiling.  
Dean stares at her, tired, and then asks slowly, "Take what, little girl?"  
"The angel I'm sharing with you, silly", she answers and giggles and somehow that just breaks Dean's heart, if possible.  
Dean stares at her again, more tired. Her eyes get impossibly wide, looking straight into Dean's, and she says, seriously and reverently, "You can't see the angel. I know. You can't even touch him, but I know he's here. He's always here. I can't hear him anymore, but that's okay, 'cause he said I couldn't hear him anymore when I grew up but he said he'll always be here". Then her face falls, her lips are tugged down as she tells Dean, "You're sad. You need an angel too. I'll share him with you".  
Dean looks at her small fingers for a long, long minute before reaching out and letting them hold his. The girls beams at him and says, "That's good. He'll stay with you too. My mom says there's no angels, but I know there are 'cause I could hear him."  
She looks thoughtful for a second before adding, "But maybe he's the only angel in the world. Do you think so?"  
"Maybe", Dean says.  
The little girl smiles brightly at him, then walks away.  
That is when Dean breaks. Or whatever broken pieces left in him break some more. He curses the whole world for waking him up. He wants to kill something. Anything.  
That is when he hears a scream from the house.

***

_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, he whispers. He wonders, how has he managed to still remember to say this, to claim the fault as his even in this agony._

***

It takes Dean a moment to realise the voice was Jimmy's. On instincts, he takes his gun and his knife and warily approaches the house. Looking through the window, he realises it's only Jimmy in the living room, seemingly unharmed. Tucking his weapons back in his belt, Dean slowly turns the door handle and walks in. Jimmy's sitting the middle of the room, the glass of the coffee table shattered to pieces at his feet.  
Jimmy doesn't speak when Dean approaches him. He doesn't speak when Dean lifts him up and lays him on the couch or when Dean wraps the white bandage around his bleeding hands.  
And not when he packs his things and follows Dean to the Impala.  
Until he falls asleep in the passenger seat.

***

_It stops again. Suddenly. There's only silence in times like this. Times when they leave so they can return and destroy harder. Even when there's barely anything left to destroy. In times like this, he looks out the small hole on one of the "walls". He can't tell what it is that he's seeing, so, he imagines. He likes to think it's the sky. The blue, blue sky._

***

No, he tells himself, this is not Castiel. Not Castiel angel of the fucking MIA lord. Not Castiel the hunted angel. Not Cas. Not even Cas the dick. Cas doesn't cry. Cas doesn't have tears or creases on his face when he sleeps.  
Dean still remembers. In the short time when he started to need sleep, despite his constant frown and the lost look in his too big eyes when he was awake, in his sleep, he always looked so innocent. It was strange, and so innnocent sometimes Dean wanted to keep him asleep forever, because then, all that Dean didn't want to see vaporised like erased from Cas' face. The tired look on his face. The bitterness in his eyes when Dean knew he was thinking about his deadbeat dad. The intense but pained look that caused Dean's chest to ache like it did for no one else. The exhausted wide eyes when he was human. They were all erased, much instantly, when he fell asleep.  
So Dean has a totally sober sense that this isn't Cas. Will never be Cas. Cas doesn't look torn in his sleep.  
Cas doesn't punch a desk and gets his hands cut.  
Cas doesn't have things to pack. Or grief to grieve.  
He can go on forever, so Dean, he says, this is not Cas.  
Apparently, Cas doesn't stay.

They spend the night on the side of a road, under a big, messy, ugly tree. Jimmy hasn't waken for once since he fell asleep against the window.

***

_He just wants to sleep. It's so much it should numb him, but that's not their point. Their point is to make it as severe as required to keep him awake, to make sure he can feel every fibre in his body pulled out from its container. And to make sure every moment of that will be carved into him.  
And he feels the name dying on his lips and fading in his mind, slowly, but surely._

***

As soon as Dean steps out of the car, the icy cold of the night hits him like a slap in the face.  
He remembers a cold night like this.  
Still, like yesterday.  
It was a Thursday night, and Dean will always remember it as a Thursday night. The night was cold, just like this, because it wasn't so long ago. It was on the side of a road, much like this one.  
There was a meteor shower.  
Dean was sitting with his back against Sam, and Sam trully laughed for the first time in, Dean had no idea how long. His laughter vibrated through their backs, the shaking movements from his skin, through the layers of clothes they were wearing, to Dean's. Dean heard it, felt it, and he laughed too, because, Sam said, Now I kinda know why people keep mistaking us for a gay couple. Aren't we a little too sappy with this?  
And he laughed again. Then, Dean didn't see, but felt, it reduce to a smile that would remain on Sam's face much longer than usual after that.  
That was when Castiel came. He simply appeared next to Dean, sitting on the hood of the Impala as well, eyes towards the meteor shower. Dean didn't look, but he knew Cas was sitting too close to him, just inches away, but not touching, because Cas was a creature of accuracy, as Sam would say sometimes.  
It felt warm with Cas next to him and Sam against his back. Dean felt like he was covered, trapped in the warmth of the people he cared about. Far away from them, thousands of shooting stars kept falling, heading like there was no end to the Earth, glowing in their blue white light, mystical like an undiscovered land. What they had, right then, was so beautiful Dean couldn't breathe that easily, and when he thought of Cas there beside him, he ached.  
When it was over, Sam was nursing his second beer.  
Then, Dean looked at Cas.  
Cas' head was bowed, and Dean couldn't see his eyes behind the long lashes. Dean wasn't sure what Cas was looking at. His hand, maybe _their hand_ s. But Cas' gaze was intense with the scrutiny he reserved for Dean. _And for him only_ , he thought silently. Cas looked like he had been like that for a while, like, Dean didn't know when he had taken his eyes off the beautiful falling meteroids and on whatever he was looking at.  
So Dean followed Cas' gaze, and yes, it was set on their hands, where they were placed against the black metal hood of the car.  
And Cas started moving his. His long fingers slowly strode towards Dean's, creeping on the black surface. Then he stopped, when they were just half an inch away from Dean's, moving slightly on the spots they were at with minute movements. As if he didn't dare move them any farther.  
But he wanted to.  
And so Dean dragged his hand towards Cas', and closed the gap between their little fingers, let them touch and pressed his against Cas'. Cas was silent at the first contact, but after a moment, he slowly looked up to meet Dean's eyes, and Dean could see a thousand questions there. And, oh, in Dean's entire life, he had never been more certain than that moment, about what he was seeing.  
So, Dean stared back at Cas, his eyes storming gently but firmly into Cas' blue.  
It was a promise.  
A pledge.  
That _someday, someday, you'll have my hand in your own._  
If we make it out alive.  
Dean hoped.

And he remembers it, every detail of what he was looking at, every line and curve of the feeling in his heart in that moment.

Slowly, he takes out a polaroid. The only photograph of Cas in existence. And strikes his lighter.  
The dagger in his chest sinks impossibly deeper, and so fast he falls to his knees. Cries.

***

_You've given up on me, is all he hears himself thinking. Knowing._

***

 

_**Winter – Silver Creek, Colorado** _

"Bye Dean", Nate and Benji say to Dean through the window.  
"Yeah. Bye", Dean smiles back, "Tell Cathy I say hi. Growing fast, isn't she?"  
"Yeah", Nate smiles fondly at the mentioning of his daughter, and tells Dean, "I'll tell her, but you're gonna have to come see her in person sometime. You know Cathy".  
"Yeah, sometime", Dean promises.

When Nate is out of the small gate, Dean takes a beer out of the bridge and sits down on his desk, looking out the window opposite to the one at the desk. Dean found these two windows a little weird when they first came here. They're both at the centre of the wall, across from each other. The room serves as both the living room and his office. Dean told Jimmy he could use his help in managing the garage, but after a week helping around in the house, Jimmy started working in a convenience store two blocks away. Nate and Benji came in a few days later. They're brothers, and both good men, so Dean considers himself lucky. Nate's seven-year-old, Cathy, came to "pick her dad up" once, and ever since, she beams every time she gets to see Dean.  
Dean doesn't know why he's here, why _they're_ here, at this Annie Wilke town, or why they're _here_ , still living. Neither of them can exactly call this "moving on". They've never talked about what happened at Stull Cemetery or in Pontiac. They won't. Whatever between them, the living pace they share, the _life_ they live at the same speed of breaths, are colder than the snow out there.  
Sometimes Jimmy would stare at Dean for long, long minutes, when he's sitting in the couch and Dean's in the chair with its back against the desk. And Dean lets him. That stare, Dean never understands, but he never doesn't. Jimmy makes breakfast and Dean cooks dinner. Jimmy buys the groceries because the supermarket is a five-minute walk away from the store where he works. They do the dishes together, and never bother to explain to people the relationship between them, or why they're living in the same house, the house that no one had bought before they did with a cheap price because of the weird deaths that had happened for a half a decade.  
Yeah, whatever is between them, it's colder than the snow out there.

The door creaks open and Dean doesn't have to look up to know Jimmy's home, but he does look up because Jimmy hasn't called "I'm home" like he does everyday. When Dean's eyes catch the sight of Jimmy's face, he looks paler than yesterday, and his eyes are glassy, having lost their blue. He's looking right through Dean like he wasn't there.  
"Hey", Dean greets, "You okay?"  
Jimmy looks at Dean for five long minutes before he answers with a nod and goes straight upstairs to his room.  
Dean heads for the kitchen.

Half an hour later, the dinner is ready and Jimmy's still in his room, which Dean starts to find strange, since he never misses dinner. He walks to Jimmy's room to find that the door isn't closed, so he pushes it open.  
Jimmy's sitting on his bed with his back to the door. He doesn't answer when Dean says, "Hey, dinner ready. Are you okay?".  
He doesn't even move either, so Dean walks around the bed to look at his face.  
Jimmy's face is hidden by the dark and a few strands of black hair hanging down over his eyes, but the knife he holds in his hand is shining in the dark room.  
Dean kneels down in front of him and gently pries the knife from his fingers. Jimmy looks up and his eyes are a finger away from Dean's, hardened but so, so lost and wide and Dean can't stand it. He really can't stand it, so he sits on the bed next to Jimmy, pressed close against him, and wraps both his arms around him. Jimmy's head sags into Dean's shoulder, his arm comes around Dean's waist, and he cries himself to sleep like that.

Watching the sleeping man next to him, Dean thinks of the fact that he realised the knife in Jimmy's hand was the missing one from the kitchen that he'd been looking for days. He thinks of what could have happened. It could have happened in any of the last days and Dean would never have seen it coming. He recalls this morning; Jimmy went to work like any other day, there was nothing, absolutely nothing different about him. It could have happened today, if Dean hadn't come to Jimmy's room, if he had simply thought that Jimmy had fallen asleep. It could have happened any day since they moved here. The thought scares him. It's more terrifying than it should be, even though Dean doesn't know how terrifying it should be. How can you know something like that?  
Jimmy's brows furrow in his sleep, his breaths heavy and interrupted. Dean looks at him and silently it hurts. And again after a long year, he fully acknowledges how miserable they have been. How banished and meaningless this life of theirs has been. How they have crucified themselves, and how they can't undo that to themselves. They can't.

The next morning Jimmy wakes up in his arms. Dean calls him in sick, and closes the garage. Jimmy spends the day in bed.  
At noon, Dean brings Jimmy a small bowl of cereal. Jimmy's face is even paler in the weak light of the winter sun, but his eyes aren't soulless like last night anymore. They're just sad, still too wide, and so sad.  
Dean raises a hand to his cheek and asks, "You okay?"  
"Yes", he answers docilly, this time honest, and stares at his hands. Suddenly, it's like looking at Cas all over again right before Dean carried him into Bobby's guest room and laid him on the bed there.  
And Dean can't stand it. He has to close his eyes. When he opens them, it's when he feels Jimmy's hand covering Dean's on his own face. Jimmy stares at him, still so sad.  
Dean withdraws his hand, and gives him the bowl, "You need to eat".  
Jimmy nods and obediently takes it. Dean watches him eating, and wonders if the reason why each of them is still alive is because of the other.  
He can't know.

Jimmy goes back to work three days later, after helping around the house while Dean works in the garage, and smiling for the first time since they moved here.  
He comes home at six thirty, and Dean is standing at the window across from his desk, hands against the stool, not hearing his "Hey, I'm home".  
Jimmy stands there for a moment, then he turns to the door, heading for his room. But just when his fingers reach the door handle, Dean asks, "Do you think I'm still alive because you're here?". His voice echoes through the empty silent room. Standing in here, one would hardly imagine a snow storm out there were there been no windows.  
"I don't know", Jimmy replies quietly, "but I am".  
Dean says nothing to that. Jimmy stands, facing the door for another long minute. Then he drops his coat to the floor and comes to stand behind Dean. Dean feels Jimmy's arms snake around his waist and a cold face pressed to his neck. He puts his hands over Jimmy's, entwines their fingers, and Jimmy tightens his hold. Dean can feel his hands warming up under the heat of his body. He turns around and Jimmy's there, hands hovering over Dean's chest. He leans forward, so Jimmy's hands now lie flat against his chest. Jimmy's lips are cold and chapped against his, and he gives in, tender but hard.  
As their tongues meet, Jimmy's arms move up around Dean's neck, his fingers gripping at Dean's hair. Turning them around, Dean lifts Jimmy up and lays him on the window stool. His eyes stare intensely at Dean, blue and dark. Dean kisses his mouth again, hand and arm around his neck, then he kisses his cheek, his jaw, and Jimmy's legs grip like a vice around Dean's waist when he moves to the pale exposed throat.  
Jimmy's breaths are caught in his throat when Dean runs his palms under his shirt, the tips of his fingers ghosting over his nipples. But then Dean freezes.  
Jimmy's chest is smooth and made of perfect skin.  
Cas' used to be like this too, the first time Dean saw it. But the second time he did, it was marked with scars that would never fade.  
Dean takes his hands off Jimmy, and presses his cheek against Jimmy. It's overwhelming again. It always will. He can't escape. He can't be released.  
Jimmy takes Dean's face into his hands, wanting him to meet his eyes, but Dean won't, so he holds Dean and Dean puts his face on Jimmy's shoulder.  
They stay like that for a few minutes. Then Jimmy lets go and asks, "What's for dinner?". He smiles a little, and Dean looks into his eyes and he knows Jimmy will be okay. Even if he won't.  
"Macaroni", he says and smiles too.

 

Exactly one year from what happened in Stull Cemetery and Pontiac, Jimmy comes home early to find the garage closed, and Dean nowhere to be found. Slowly, he approaches Dean's bedroom and he's standing at the window. He walks, almost silently, to Dean, and touches his arm.  
"Dean".  
Dean doesn't turn around at his name, but then Jimmy takes out something from his pocket and presses it in Dean's hand.  
It's a phone. Cas' phone.  
When Dean opens it, Sam and Cas' smiles hit him. He stands there, staring at the picture until Jimmy speaks again.  
"Sam took this. Just before he… I was awake then… and Cas, Cas asked me if Sam had wanted him to show this to you…".  
Dean turns fully at Jimmy, and looks at him with unreadable eyes, and puts the phone down on the bedside table. Then he opens the drawer, takes out a small, slightly rumbled photograph and gives it to Jimmy.  
Jimmy takes the photo and stares at it in silence. It's an old photo of Claire and Amelia, back when Claire was just five. She's wearing her then favourite dress, her hair wavy from the just undone braids, and she's smiling around a lollipop.  
"Clair gave it to me that night before they left. So you wouldn't forget her.", Dean says quietly, his voice tinted with regret and guilt.  
Jimmy bites his lips and looks at the picture for some more seconds before he puts it down next to Castiel's phone. When he turns back at Dean, his eyes are blue and clear, and when his hands creep up on Dean's arms, and he leans in, Dean doesn't resist. He kisses Jimmy until they fall down on his bed, and he doesn't loosen his hold after that. Not until Jimmy arches up in his arms and Dean collapses.  
Everyday after that, Jimmy wakes up in Dean's arms, and he still makes breakfast.

 

_**Winter – Silver Creek, Colorado** _

"Jimmy!", Dean shouts, wondering who can come this early in the morning, "Can you get the door? Or else you're gonna eat carbon instead of pancakes!".  
"Coming", comes Jimmy's voice from upstairs. The sounds of his footsteps follow a second after.  
Dean smiles to himself. Jimmy has a distinctive way of coming downstairs. He always runs, even if that's not necessary.  
A moment later, he hears the door clicking opened. Dean calls out, "Who's there, Jim?" as he slips the pancakes onto two dishes, but no reply comes. Frowning, Dean wipes his hands on his jeans and heads for the living room.  
"Hey, Jimmy—". He stops short at the sight of their visitor.  
Jimmy's standing stunned at the front door. Behind him, Dean can see a man in a trench coat, his face and figure impossibly identical to Jimmy. Only that, Dean knows that's not a man. Jimmy turns around at the sounds of Dean's steps, his eyes wide with disbelief. Castiel's still standing on the porch, his hands in the pockets of his coat, blue tie, blue eyes, calm as ever. There's a ghost of a smile on his lips.  
For a minute, Dean can only stare. But in the next second, his face is shut off to a blank expression. He comes beside Jimmy, putting an arm around him, causing both him and Castiel to flinch slightly, and asks, "What are you doing here, Castiel?".  
At his question, Castiel looks clearly taken aback. Jimmy doesn't miss the way the eyes reflecting his widen, and the way Castiel's lips part slightly.  
None of them speak for another long minute before Castiel's voice breaks the silence, sounding too small and somehow, _shaking_.  
"You… you called me Castiel", he all but whispers, looking straight at Dean.  
"That's your name, isn't it?", Dean replies, and Jimmy flinches at the calmness of his voice.  
Castiel looks at him silently, before he says, straining each word as his voice trembles a little more, "No. I'm Cas."  
"No you're not", Dean says almost immediately, "Not anymore". He sounds steady, and his hold on Jimmy tightens, but Jimmy can hear the shaking bitterness hidden beneath.  
Castiel's eyes get impossible wide, and he blinks ever so slowly, once, twice.  
"We're done. Now I don't care what you're doing here, 'cause you actually have nothing to do here. So, I'd appreciate it if you'll just leave us alone", Dean continues.  
A wave of shock and pain crosses Castiel's face as Dean says the word "us".  
"I…"  
"You left", Dean cuts him off.  
Castiel stares at Dean, then at Jimmy, and then he turns away, looking at his feet, before murmurring, "Gabriel". A shorter man with brown hair and brown eyes appears next to him. Jimmy assumes this must be Gabriel.  
He gives Dean a long look and then turns to Castiel slowly, eyes questioning, but whatever he's asking, Castiel isn't going to answer, because he simply says, "We… I should leave". Gabriel doesn't look like he's believing a word Castiel's said, but he lets it slide. And when he touches Castiel's arm before they disappear, Jimmy gets a strong feeling that something is _not right_. At least about Castiel.

***

They spend breakfast in complete silence. And everything is just wrong. Jimmy feels like he should be angry on Dean's behalf when Castiel just comes back out of the blue like this after leaving him in a cemetery, with an invisible hole that his brother had just jumped into, and an uncollectible corpse of the closest person to a father he'd had, but he can't. There's something off about Castiel, and Jimmy feels like there's something he's not telling them. Dumping his dish in the sink, Jimmy turns around and looks at Dean from behind.  
"Dean", he starts, intending to tell him that they should talk to Castiel, but Dean cuts him off .  
"I don't wanna talk about it".  
When Jimmy doesn't reply, he sighs, stands up and takes Jimmy's face in his hands.  
"I just… I don't wanna talk about it now, okay?", he repeats, this time much softer, and runs his thumbs on Jimmy's cheeks. Jimmy sighs and leans into the touch, but he can't drown the growing confusion and the bad feeling in his gut.  
"Okay", he says, "I should get going or Grady's gonna get me an earful". He smiles faintly and Dean returns it with a smile just as weak.  
"Okay. See you", he says before kissing Jimmy on the cheek.

***

Dean picks up the phone with his bloody hand and calls Nate, telling him he and Benji are gonna get the day off. Hanging up, he drags himself through the mess of smashed porcelain in the kitchen.  
He wants Jimmy to be here. Facing the endless white outside the window, whenever he thinks of him, Dean sees a twin face with every curve, every sharp angle just the same, only shining with the inhumanly intense blue that no one's eyes can fake, and that innocence that he _hates_.  
That he hates with every ounce of blood running in his veins.  
That innocence that he loved. That he loves. So fucking much.  
Dean starts crying. He starts crying like the day he hid in the bathroom while Dad was getting Sammy into bed, when he was four.  
The image of Castiel's fingers timidly moving towards his is suddenly playing over again. But this time, there isn't a photograph for Dean to tear to pieces and burn to ashes.

 

When Jimmy finally comes home, Dean is nowhere to be found. Worried, he starts searching the house and is relieved to find Dean sleeping in his bedroom, clothes still fully on. That is until he notices the empty bottle on the floor.  
Carefully, he sits down and runs his fingers through Dean's hair. His face is tired, damp with tears. Jimmy sits there for a long, long while before walking to his own room.

***

"Cas", Jimmy whispers, sitting with his legs crossed on his bed, "I, uhm, can I talk to you?"  
_Yes_ , comes the reply. Jimmy heaves a breath and asks, "Well… Can you, you know, come here? I think…"  
Before he can finishes the sentence, Castiel is standing on his bedside. Jimmy is surprised to find Gabriel next to him. He figures Gabriel must be an angel too.  
Just as the silence in the room starts to get awkward, at least for Jimmy, Castiel, thankfully, turns to his brother and gives a small assuring nod. Gabriel gives him a hesitant look before grimacing and disappearing, leaving Jimmy with Cas.  
"What did you want to talk about, Jimmy?", Castiel asks, his voice and face carefully and tentatively blank.  
"Uhm… Sit down first, Cas".  
Cas obeys and sits down on the bed next to Jimmy, his shoulders slumped. He stares at his hands instead of Jimmy.  
"What are you not telling me and Dean, Cas?", Jimmy blurts. Castiel jerks up and stares wide-eyed at Jimmy, and Jimmy knows he's hit the spot, so he pushes, "What happened back at Stull Cemetery? What did you tell me before you left?"

***

Dean wakes up to the worst headache he's got in a decade. His watch reads 11:30. He gets up out of bed to find some aspirins. As he's passing Jimmy's room, he finds the door opened and the sight inside catches his eyes. Jimmy's lying on his back, next to him, Castiel is curled up on his side, his nose almost touching Jimmy's shoulder, sleeping. And the innocence on his asleep face hasn't changed for the slightest, and Dean's heart clenches. He's back to Bobby's yard again, [on a day when the sky was bleeding white](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7113307), to Cas' face hidden between his neck and his shoulder, back to the warmth of Cas in his arms, back to his promise.  
Dean closes his eyes. When he opens them again, Jimmy's are there, as if waiting for him. He gives Dean a look that means they're gonna have a talk.  
Dean nods slightly and closes the door as he walks on to the kitchen.

***

The sound of the door slamming closed, however soft, causes Cas to wake. Jimmy turns to Cas and is met with lucid eyes staring back at him. Cas touches his arm and says with a small smile, "Thank you".  
Without really thinking about it, Jimmy strokes Castiel's hair gently. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay", he promises. Then he thinks about the weirdness of their current condition, and smiles to himself.  
"What's so funny?", Cas asks, confused and curious.  
"Just that… You look like my twin, but you're not, and I used to be your _vessel_. How many people can have that?", he chuckles softly.  
Cas smiles again, still that small nervous smile. Jimmy pats him on the shoulder, and tells him to sleep some more before getting out of bed.

***

When he enters the kitchen, Dean is sitting in one of a chairs, staring at his coffee. There's a grimace on his face, but his eyes are wet. Jimmy skirts around the table, wraps his arms around Dean and covers his hands with his own. Dean leans back, his head resting near where Jimmy's heart is beating with a thousand different beats. A sharp pain's flooding inside him. He wishes this moment were all Dean has, that these hands could be kept inside his own.  
But that can't be.  
He can't do that to Castiel, not after everything he's now known of.  
So, Jimmy lets go of Dean, and prepares himself to let go of everything else.  
Slowly, he sits down in front of Dean and begins the story Castiel told him last night.  
"Castiel didn't leave you", he says, clear and firm.  
Dean is silent, but his head snaps up, his eyes boring into Jimmy's, as if seeking for the truth.  
"He was dragged back to Heaven, Dean".  
Dean turns away, his eyes moist with tears again, and his lips trembling, and if the look of pain on his face could kill…  
Jimmy wants to reach out and holds him, but he knows if he did he'd never finish this story, and he can't do that to Cas. So he waits until Dean's calmed himself down again and turned back to his coffee to continue.  
This time, he doesn't stop. Because it's just so easy to stop. For good. He's going to tell Dean exactly what Castiel has told him, and it's going to be too painful, but, Dean needs to know it all. He has to know _everything_.  
"The angels dragged him back. Put him in Heaven's prison. They tortured him, tore out his wings. It was Raphael's idea to remake his wings just to rip them apart again. Piece by little piece. Then they would stop, just to begin again just when the pain started to dull. All he could still know was you. They kept coming back for more, again and again until he was about to forget everything, ready to be brainwashed, reprogrammed. He would have been, if Gabriel hadn't returned. Now, he can't fly anymore. Not without Gabriel."  
At the last words, Jimmy's surprised at how calm his voice has sounded. Like telling a cruel fairytale.  
Dean hasn't looked up for once. He cries silently, teardrops falling into the forgotten coffee. Jimmy reaches out, because he can't not, and grips Dean's hands in his. And Dean nods, an unspoken yes.  
Swallowing the pain, Jimmy stands and holds Dean for what he knows will be the last time, before leaving.  
"I'll go get Cas", he says at the kitchen door, not looking back.

***

Dean feels like it's the end of the world all over again, but, this time, he won't let it end either. He's back to that day. Back to the soft skin of Cas' borrowed arms around his shoulder. Back to the movements of Cas' borrowed eyelashes against his neck. Back to his promise.  
_You won't. Just like this you won't_.  
_Back to that one dream._

He's startled by the breathless voice of Jimmy's.  
"Dean. Cas is gone."  
Dean stands abruptly. _No_.

***

"God dammit", Dean curses, "We've searched the whole town. Where the hell can he be? He can't… he can't go that far".  
"We haven't tried the Silver Cliff, Dean. Drive there", Jimmy says in the passenger seat, himself not any better than Dean.  
Dean makes a left turn, heading for the steep.

They reach the Silver Cliff after ten minutes. The snow on the rocky surface and the fog above the abyss are so thick they can barely tell where the cliff ends and the endless space of the chasm begins. Cas is sitting on his knees and shins, dressed in his usual clothes, but his feet are naked and palish in the freezing cold.  
Dean is out of his car before he turns off the engine, calling out his name but Cas doesn't answer. A touch of Jimmy's hand on his arm makes Dean freeze. He realises how close to the edge Cas is, and trying to keep his nerves down, he takes slow steps on shaking feet to Cas.  
"Cas", Dean says when he's at a safe distance, small enough for him to grab Cas, "come on, come with me. Whatever you're planning to do…"  
"I wish I could".  
The reply comes curt, too quickly, but, too quietly. Dean stands frozen where he is.  
"I wish I could. I am but an angel without wings, forever falling but never hitting the ground. I wish I could do it. I wish I could rip out my grace and fall, so I could be reborn, so I could be _loved_. But I can't. Because the memories would finally come back, and because you would finally be the only one again. And I can't escape. How can I ever be anything else, but Cas?". Cas' voice breaks and the words pierce through Dean's heart. An angel with his wings snatched away from him, yet all he wanted was still Dean.  
_Because you would finally be the only one again._  
And I can't escape.  
How can I ever be anything else, but Cas.  
"You _are loved_ , Cas", Dean says through tears threatening to fall, "You are. Now come here with me Cas".  
For a moment, Cas stays so still Dean's scared that he's not going to turn back, but then, he turns those two too bright, too blue, too wide eyes to Dean, and just looks at him.  
Dean falls to his knees, and pulls Cas close to him, keeping Cas in his arms no matter how weak they are right now. Cas brings his hands to Dean's back, gripping him painfully tight, and his head falls on Dean's shoulder. And Dean feels like the whole world has just cried its suffering to him.

 

Cas completely melts against Dean. His lips are soft and fragile and desperate, and it hurts so much Dean has to whisper in Cas' breaths, "I'm here. I'm right here".  
He lays Cas on the bed and for a few minutes they just stare at each other, Dean's fingers in Cas' hair and Cas' nails digging into Dean's arms, grounding him.  
Then Dean peels away Cas' clothes, one layer after another, and kisses Cas like he silently promised Cas that day on the side of a forgotten road. Sweet. With _love_.  
Cas' body shudders under the touch of Dean's lips and fingers, when he nips at the pulsing vein, when he casts feather touches over a nipple, when he lifts Cas' leg and kisses the inner side of his thigh.  
As Dean's mouth reaches the spot where Cas' thighs meet his hips, Cas lets out a choked sound. When Dean looks up, he sees Cas crying. Silent sobs come out suffocated from his pale lips and those beautiful eyes are soaked with tears.  
Dean crawls up on the mattress, his body warm against the ice cold skin of Cas'. Cas looks away, and Dean can't see his eyes anymore, because his lashes seem to have grown longer in the time he was apart from Dean. Cas' gaze is set on their hands. Just like that, again. Only this time, his fingers are pressing hard on Dean's, nails grazing the calloused skin there. But still, because Dean's always the one to make the first move, he fits his fingers, quite perfectly, in the spaces between Cas'.  
"I've missed you", Cas says, and Dean sits Cas up and into his arms and holds him tight, tight enough for it not to kill Dean right now.  
In Dean's arms like that, Cas keeps crying, like he's never going to stop, but when he does, Dean doesn't let go of his hand, while he makes Cas slowly fall apart to be remade in his arms.

***

Cas is quiet, messy hair tucked under Dean's chin. They stay like that for a long while, until Cas speaks.  
"Tell me a story, Dean".  
So Dean tells Cas the newest story he's learned.  
"There's this angel, the last angel left on Earth. Once he came to a little child because she was sad. Unlike the others, the little kid could see and hear the angel, until the day she was too grown up for it. The angel left, but the girl knows the angel would never forget her, and so she's never feeling lonely again. Then one day when the little girl was walking on a street, she saw a man sitting in a car. The man was so sad because his one true love had just left him. The little girl walked to the man, and said she wanted to share the angel with the man."  
"Did the man take the angel?", Cas asks quietly.  
"He did", Dean replies and pulls Cas closer to his chest, to his beating heart.

Cas falls asleep in Dean's arms, his fingers laid over the scar on Dean's shoulder. Later at night, Dean dreams of bloody tattered wings and a familiar face.

***

Dean wakes suddenly at five to find both his arms and Cas' bedside empty. Panic, he runs downstairs, but the sight in the living room makes him hold his breath.  
Jimmy is standing at the front door, neatly dressed, a suitcase at his feet. Cas is next to him, in Dean's sleep clothes, his hand on Jimmy's arm. And he speaks, with his gravel voice, the voice that's always sincere, touches the core of your being and enchants your world, a voice without any dim, and shoots down any doubt. He says, "Please, stay".  
Jimmy lets go of the handle of his suitcase and turns to face Castiel fully, and Cas leans in to put a soft kiss on his cheek.  
"Stay", he repeats, this time so softly.  
Jimmy blinks, a question _why_ in his eyes.  
Cas smiles, "You look like my twin, but you're not, and you used to be the container of myself. How many people can have that?".  
Jimmy smiles, with a strange look of peace, and pulls Cas close with a hand on his neck, and kisses Cas' temple.  
"Okay. I'll stay", he promises, to Cas and the intense green eyes gazing at them.

***

 

_**Fall – Silver Creek, Colorado** _

Dean's learned that the sunset almost always looks like this in this place, in this time of the year. The sky is made into an endless misty canvas, where all the orange and yellow is smeared and wet, and there's a droplet of red in there, and if one looks closely enough, they can see it daubing itself on the painting, demanding to be seen, without really getting any bigger.  
Cas doesn't miss this whole sight anyday. He looks small on the simple swing, but stands out in front of the sunset, like he always has, and the whole natural piece of art becomes a background for him, for his slim figure, for the way his hair moves in the wind, for the way the quaking aspen leaves are stuck in there, for his fingers loose on the rough ropes. A background for the angel that he is to glow.  
Once, Jimmy came beside Dean, standing at the other side of the window. He said that Cas looked like The Little Prince, and Dean knew what he meant, even though there's no way in hell he would admit reading The Little Prince. Yes, Cas looks just like The Little Prince, but when the sunset is over, he can't either turn the swing or get another sunset. But Dean wants to believe it's okay, because then, Cas turns to him, and smiles, and Dean has his own sunset to behold.  
Sometimes, Gabriel would come and touch Cas on the arm, and they would disappear after an unfamiliar flutter of wings, but Cas always get back before the sunset. Sometimes Jimmy would sit next to him, on the same swing, and Cas would put his head on Jimmy's shoulder, or gave him a small kiss on the cheek. Sometimes, just sometimes, Cas would sigh and say, "Jim, I wish I had forty-four sunsets now to see".  
Cas always calls Jimmy "Jim", and he never kisses him on the lips, and sometimes, Cas sits there alone long after the sun has set, turning his own body because he can't turn the swing. But, Dean thinks maybe, maybe he's finally got his own heaven. Long ago, Dean realised he didn't want heaven as a perfect place filled with the most perfect memories. He wanted it to be real, to include everything, to be _human_.

**Author's Note:**

> And yes, I _had_ to choose that Anne Wilkes town.


End file.
